If there’s one thing my clients say to me again and again it is: “ David, what’s the magic ingredient for taking control of my time? How can I stop working so hard and for so long?”
My response is: “Would you get on a plane if the pilot didn’t have a navigation plan?” Of course you wouldn’t. So why do you think you can get to where you want to without a map of how to spend your time; a map which blocks in the right amount of time to meet your priorities?
A default diary or time-blocking diary is simple and amazingly effective. And the mental release from stress is incredible. You know how anxious you get when you’re working on a task but in the back of your mind you have a series of niggling thoughts telling you that you should be doing something else. Or forming mental lists and wondering if you will ever get through them.
If you want to get your life back, make your next step loading up a default diary. Once that’s in place, you will be able to schedule the time – week after week – to do the things that are the most important to your business.
And you will also have time to make sure you sweep up all those things that just come along. Above all, you will have time for YOU. Time to spend with the family. Time to get into the boat and start fishing or practising those putts you keep missing because you’ve got the jitters! ( Probably telling yourself you shouldn’t be on the golf course.
A default diary not only gives you your time back. It gives you your life back.
My advice: put setting up a default diary to the top of your ‘to do’ list.